WATCH: Nevada Lawmaker Comes Out During Gay Marriage Debate

by: April 24, 2013

With all the other news demanding our attention in the past week, we missed an interesting dispatch from Nevada: Just as the state senate began moving toward repealing a ban on same-sex marriage, a state senator surprised his colleagues with an announcement.

“In a particularly emotional moment, Sen. Kelvin Atkinson, D-North Las Vegas, publicly declared for the first time that he is gay.

“‘I’m black. I’m gay,’ Atkinson said in a trembling voice after describing his father’s interracial re-marriage that would have been banned earlier in American history. ‘I know this is the first time many of you have heard me say that I am a black, gay male.’

“Atkinson went on to rebut the argument that gay marriage threatens any other definition of marriage.”

“If this hurts your marriage, then your marriage was in trouble in the first place,” Atkinson added.

The Nevada Senate went on to vote 12-9 in favor of sending SJR13, an amendment to the Nevada constitution requiring the recognition of all marriages regardless of gender, to the full assembly.

Good Morning America reports: “Atkinson, a young single father and Chicago-native, has served as a Democratic member of the state’s legislature for more than a decade.”